


Thoroughbreds

by boygenius2002



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Anxiety Attacks, Daphne Greengrass is basically an OC, Drama & Romance, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Falling In Love, Grief/Mourning, Gryffindor/Slytherin Inter-House Relationships, Hurt/Comfort, References to Depression, Romance, Slow Burn, Terminal Illnesses, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:40:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28886238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boygenius2002/pseuds/boygenius2002
Summary: Daphne Greengrass was born unimportant. She was born into a loveless marriage to parents who loved her even less, and as a girl, would never achieve anything close to the greatness her father had expected of a firstborn son. But she had her Abraxans, and she had her books, and she had Astoria.Neville Longbottom was born unlucky. He was born to parents who would soon only be strangers to him, and he would never achieve anything close to their greatness or the success of the friends around him. But he had his hopes, and he had his dreams, and he had a good heart.Neither Daphne nor Neville is what the other is looking for. Their worlds collided anyway.
Relationships: Daphne Greengrass/Neville Longbottom, Neville Longbottom/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	1. Shades of Grey

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning: suicidal ideation, underage drinking, etc. Will post TWs before the beginning of each chapter. Please leave a comment and a kudos if you can!!!

**TW:** suicide attempt, underage drinking

When Lilith Greengrass discovered the gender of her first child from the midwife, she walked out of the room without a word to the East Wing of Greengrass Court and proceeded to try and drown herself in a bathtub.

It was a half-hearted pursuit at best; an attempt the women in Pureblood circles would whisper about over cups of well-steeped Assam or Darjeeling tea, their voices doing little to hide scandalized tones as they wondered what kind of woman would choose her own death over the possibility of bringing in new life. _“They have all sorts of potions for that sort of thing if she was so unhappy, Merlin!”_ Poppy Parkinson, the newest center of the rumor mill that permeated their shared high-born culture, would exclaim to other ladies sitting around her. _“One would THINK she’d at least try and look for a solution to what, really, could be a very temporary problem.”_

_“She’s still a child, Poppy,”_ Narcissa had admonished. _“She would have been a Seventh Year had Claude not removed her from Hogwarts so prematurely, the poor dear.”_

Poppy frowned into fine bone china teacup in her hands, her eyebrows pinched together. _“Oh yes, let’s all just pity a woman who does nothing but sit on her rear all day, spending her husband’s money on who-knows-what and talking to the likes of Merlin-knows-who.”_ As the wife of a _very_ popular politician in the Wizengamot, she could proudly say that at the very least she knew how to tend to her wifely responsibilities. Life for Pureblooded women had never been easy, it wasn’t exactly a wonder as to why there were so few of them left.

Pureblooded women _had_ to be strong. Theatrics involving nervous breakdowns and bathtubs were a sign of weakness and as such, they had no such role in their lifestyle.

Narcissa had frowned at her acquaintance’s reply, her cold, grey eyes stony as she looked at the pink-clad woman across from her. _“Not a woman, Poppy,”_ she answered. _“She’s merely a girl.”_

Despite the incident, a beautiful baby girl would be born on the Fourteen of February. Born as nothing more than a disappointment, Lilith looked down at the child in her arms and resigned herself to the fact that her firstborn, like herself, would serve as little more than a placeholder in some other Pureblooded man’s life one day. She had not given birth to a proper heir but to an object that could be traded and given away with a wave of her husband’s hand.

Daphne Lilith Greengrass was born on the coldest Valentine’s Day in the history of Britain.

Despite the insults her father would feed her, Daphne was actually quite smart, so it didn’t take her very long to see the irony behind her birth- not long at all.

* * *

It was a shame, really, that Daphne had been born a girl.

Had she been born the son of her father’s dreams, her varied interests might have been called “intellectual pursuits” instead of “needless distractions,” her quietness might have been appreciated as stoicism instead of stupidity, and her ambition for something _more,_ for something _greater_ than the hand she had been given, would have been endlessly supported instead of beaten into something so broken it barely resembled the dreams they once were.

Years went by, and as Daphne was fitted and molded into something that could finally be useful, the colorful visions of greatness that had bounced around in her head as a girl had been painted over in the same sickly, gray color that seemed to follow all the women in her life. Like them, a slow, sweeping realization of the fate that lay before her drowned out any cries of rebellion she might have felt. Daphne Greengrass, born a disappointment, born on a day of love and yet born into hate, had one single purpose.

Daphne would be a wife. And she would ask for nothing, want for nothing, and accept that in comparison to Draco and Theo and Blaise and all of the other Pureblooded boys she was raised alongside, her duty was quite simple. Her existence might be a miserable one, but what life of a Pureblooded woman wasn’t?

There didn’t seem to be a specific moment where she finally resigned herself to this fate; she seemingly just accepted the presence of the wide-sweeping brush that painted over her little life with the same drab, gray color it had painted over her little sister’s, her mother’s, and a list of other witches over the centuries who had been dealt an unlucky hand. 

Instead, there were a series of moments that allowed the sad reality of her life to sink its teeth into her skin. The wistful understanding that settled into her bones after reading some long-winded romance Pansy stole from the restricted section of the Hogwarts library over her friend’s shoulder, a romantic adventure about some forgettable witch and impossibly handsome wizard that she’d never have. The feeling she got when she spent five hours getting ready for the Yule Ball in her third year, the singular event that had every girl in Slytherin squealing as their dates waited outside of the Girl’s Dormitory except for her. The strange realization that she wasn’t excited nor anticipatory for the night ahead as Theo hooked his arm into hers, complimenting her beauty in an almost brotherly way. The whole encounter lacked any of the romance she read so much about and she, in fact, felt nothing at all.

There were other moments, too, that might have extinguished any sign of a flame flickering in her chest. The night her mother died; the day Astoria had her first fainting spell- the sure sign that the blood curse that had plagued their women ancestors for so long the origin was now lost to all of them. It could have been the cruel, biting words her father fed her after finding out his oldest child, a disappointment by birth alone, had been passed up for the Prefect position for her year in favor of Pansy Parkinson. Daphne made no mention of the fact that she failed to turn in her mid-term essay for Fourth Year Transfiguration on purpose, the singular assignment that would have allowed her to become the girl Slytherin Prefect in the first place. Because she simply didn’t see the point in seeing Pansy’s face fall in disappointment over an academic achievement Daphne’s predestined life didn’t require of her anyway. 

Regardless, Daphne Greengrass had long since accepted the fact that she, like the women before her and the women before them, would live the life of a dutiful Pureblooded wife. She would go to Hogwarts and throw her entire education away once a ring was slipped onto her finger, bear children- sons, of course- anything different would contribute to the continuously climbing pile of her disappointments- by a man chosen for her. She would be grateful for even the simplest of gestures of her husband whom she would only be lucky if she felt any love for at all and more importantly, she would continue tradition.

It wasn’t all bad. Daphne, like other high-born children girls and boys alike, had hobbies to keep her busy. She had the Abraxans in the stables her family had invested in for generations, she had her writing, and last but never least, she had Astoria. And with the inevitable fate of her baby sister brimming in the back of her mind, Daphne found it easy to suppress any and all complaints about her own future when Astoria’s was infinitely more uncertain.

So while other Hogwarts students in her year looked at Daphne with curiosity and pity and lust and envy; when they looked at her with scorn or maybe even confusion or sadness, she paid them no mind. Because as far as she was concerned, there was little to look at when it came to her at all, as her life had been painted with the same meaningless gray strokes that painted over the lives of all the women she knew.

* * *

Pansy tapped the side of her crystal glass with a teaspoon still covered in sticky caramelized sugar from the crème brûlée she had eaten only minutes before. Standing up from her chair, she beamed at her friends around the dining table, the grand chandelier above them- one of many located throughout Parkinson Place- glittering as candles loitered in the corners of the room.

Theo, patting his distended stomach, rolled his eyes and threw his head back in annoyance. “Pans, I’ve not even digested yet. Please wait to say whatever rehearsed little speech you’ve planned until my stomach settles-“

“-A _toast!”_ she exclaimed happily, ignoring the dark-haired boy’s pleas. Pansy, clad in a plum-colored sequin shift dress Daphne recognized as a piece from _Maison Capenoir’s_ most recent summer line, cleared her throat pointedly and lifted her nose high in the air. “To me and Draco, for being awarded as Slytherin’s most amazing, incredible, showstopping…“

“-Get to the point, Pansy-“

“…Prefects to date! And to _all_ of us, for making it to Fifth Year. With the exception of Millie, we continue to grow increasingly more beautiful and intelligent- “

“-You wretched _cow-“_

“-And last, but not least…cheers to _me,”_ Pansy announced happily, her earrings swaying as she leaned forward with her glass. “For simply being the best friend any of you could have ever asked for. You are all _incredibly_ lucky to have me, and I feel privileged to have touched the lives of so many in my brief but very beautiful fifteen years. Congratulations to _us!”_

The toast was, needless to say, predictably terrible in the way her speeches always were when their group of friends met a few days before the beginning of the school year. Pansy was just like her mother and she had taken it upon herself to be the event planner among them. Unfortunately for Daphne, Millicent, Theo and Blaise, this meant sitting through more than one of Pansy’s generous moments of self-appreciation while trying their best not to make a nasty comment in fear of losing out on Mrs. Parkinson’s free flowing alcohol.

Halfheartedly, they all rose their glasses with smiles that looked much more like grimaces, and they took a long drink of the elf-made champagne Pansy had described in nauseum in her personalized invitations the week before. “Cheers to Pans, who only becomes more and more modest as the years pass us by,” Theo quipped with a lazy grin, his eyebrows lifted in self-satisfaction at his own jeer.

Raising her finger in an unladylike gesture, Pansy rested her other manicured hand on Draco’s stiff arm and rested her head on his shoulder. “Oh Theodore, what a kind comment for you to make, as you drink _my_ liquors and eat _my_ caviar lobster toast…“

The bickering was a welcome distraction for Daphne, who chased her champagne down like she was the sole competitor in some sort of secret drinking marathon. Blaise and Draco watched Pansy and Theo’s bickering with a mixture of amusement and mischief, and Daphne took advantage of the arguing to give a cautious side-eye to Millicent on her left.

Millicent wore a blank face, but the bite behind Pansy’s comment was obvious and the crease between her brows told Daphne she certainly felt slighted by their friend’s idea of a joke. Leaning to her left, she lightly bumped arms with the brunette. “Don’t listen to her,” Daphne said quietly, her eyes never leaving the empty glass in her hand. “She’s being a prat and she knows it. The more it bothers you, the more kicks she gets out of it.”

Millicent scoffed, her eyes facing her lap. “Easy for you to say,” she said bitterly. “I don’t see Parkinson saying anything about _you.”_

Daphne didn’t know how to reply to that, so instead she let her hand roam over Millie’s and give it a quick, reassuring squeeze. “Take my advice or don’t, Millie. But just so you know, I don’t agree with her. Not one bit.”

“No?”

“Nope. As far as I’m aware, you’re as good looking as anyone here.”

Millicent laughed for real that time, snorting into her own glass with eyes full of mirth. “Does that require a thank you?” she asked with discreetly pink cheeks. “Don’t know if that’s a compliment or an insult- you’re comparing me to you, but you’re also comparing me to Parkinson, of all people…hard to tell if that means I’m gorgeous or hideous to the core.”

Daphne smirked. “The best compliments often mirror the biggest insults.”

“Wow. Barely into Fifth Year and wiser already, are we, Greenie?”

With a shrug, Daphne watched as her glass refilled itself. “No,” she said with a sigh, taking a moment to chug half of the drink in a few mere seconds. “Just making observations.”

Millicent sat quietly for a second, her brown eyes assessing her from the side. Daphne felt a little bare as she avoided her friend’s gaze, and she took a long sip of her champagne. “You…good, Daph?” she asked unsurely, her voice doing little to hide her own discomfort at the question.

Millicent’s concerned tone unsettled her more than she would have liked to admit- Daphne felt the same strangeness she felt at the Yule Ball, the same strangeness that seemed to follow her whenever she could almost feel herself outside of her own body, looking down at herself. _Was_ she good? It was anybody’s guess.

_Look at all these happy, happy people,_ she thought to herself as she glanced around the table. With watching eyes, she stared as Blaise and Theo barely suppressed their laughs as Draco tried his best to get out from under Pansy’s heated gaze and close proximity. Both boys whispered among each other as a glowering Draco Malfoy pushed his hair back, hoping his constant arm movements would keep Pansy in her own seat and far away from him.

“Daph?”

Daphne looked up at Millicent, who’s eyebrows were pinched all over again. “Hmm?” she asked her friend, looking away from the scene on the other end of the table.

“I asked if you were good.”

“Oh,” she replied smoothly, swirling the gold liquid in her crystal glass. “Yes, I’m alright, Millie. Think all this champagne and food has made me a little dizzy, you know?”

Millicent didn’t look as if she quite believed her, but her face visibly relaxed and she smiled back. “If you’re sure, Greenie,” she said casually.

Later that night, in respect to their pre- Hogwarts leave tradition, they sat in their nightwear in the Drawing Room. Flames crackled in the fireplace, casting a glow on the green and gold accents in the room as a bottle of old Firewhisky was passed among all six teenagers.

Unlike Pansy’s matching pink satin pajama set and the old Slytherin Quidditch Team sweatsuit Millicent preferred, Daphne wore a modest white nightgown she realized too late into the evening made her look all of ten years old. Playing with the light blue ribbons on the edges of the dress, her bare feet were tucked underneath her as she braced herself against the cold stone floors, the ever-present chill penetrating the Moroccan rug beneath her. She couldn’t help but appreciate the warmth that filled her chest from the Firewhisky, a small pool of heat sitting in her stomach from the cinnamon alcohol.

Her vision had blurred ages ago, and a part of her registered that Theo and Pansy had attempted to rope her into conversation until they realized she was mentally very far away, so they stopped trying. Daphne instead found herself merely nodding along unconvincingly, all of the talking around her sailing right over her head as she took generous swigs of the bottle once it made its round. Her cheeks darkened from the flush of the liquor and the fire roaring across from her, and though a part of Daphne still felt oddly distant, she was content. Or she thought so, anyway.

Light fingertips danced across her shoulder and Daphne flinched. Looking up beside her, Pansy affectionately grabbed onto her arm and smacked a kiss on her cheek, her own face flushed from the liquor. “Fifth Year is going to be our best year yet. I just know it, Daph.”

Daphne hummed an affirmative, her hand moving towards the bottle in Pansy’s hand. With an amused roll of her eyes, Pansy passed it over and watched as her friend’s face scrunched at the harsh burn of the alcohol moving down her throat. Blaise scoffed somewhere across the rug, his arms folded over his chest. “Merlin, save some for the rest of us, Greengrass,” he said with thinly veiled irritation. “Kill your liver at home on your own time like the rest of us.”

“Fuck off Blaise,” Pansy snapped, her mouth curled into a snarl. Giving Daphne another reassuring pat, she tilted the bottle up into her friend’s mouth and smiled. “You get as pissed as you like, love. Blaise, I’d be more than happy to go fetch some Moonseed Poison from Mother’s vaults if you’re so desperate for something to drink.”

“Only if we drink it together, Parkinson.”

“I think there’s only enough for you and Theo, unfortunately. But both of you feel free to drink it up, I’m nothing if not a good host that _shares with her guests.”_

The bickering scratched at something inside Daphne, and some thought in the back of her mind told her that all of this nonsensical arguing should irritate her. They were all completely pissed- Millicent had long since passed out on a couch, her mouth wide open in a way that made Pansy curl her lips in disgust every time she looked over, and Draco was brooding in front of the fireplace like some poorly written antagonist in one of the wizarding romances Daphne was so hellbent on reading.

But instead, despite her friends sitting around her and enjoying the last days of their summer holiday before they began their Fifth Year, she felt inexplicably and completely alone.

* * *

Pansy would never admit it- and Merlin knows Daphne, Millicent, and even _Tracey Davis_ of all people told her often enough- but she snored like a Hippogriff.

If anybody asked, and they wouldn’t, Daphne would tell them that Pansy’s huffing and groaning kept her up all night. But instead she found herself sitting beside Draco, both of them looking into the dimming flames in the fireplace as the bottle of Firewhisky sat between them untouched.

Draco had always been the contemplative type. While she had become closest with Theo and Pansy throughout their youth, Daphne seemed to know Draco best of all and it wasn’t because she wanted to, or because she naturally clicked with him in the way she slipped into her other friendships. No, it was only because she and Draco had fallen victim to her father’s forced arranged playdates for years, and it was simply easier to play along for the sake of playing along than to fight against it.

Claude Greengrass’s near- obsession with Daphne marrying into the Malfoy family had reached new heights of pathetic as she got older, and the only good thing that had come from it was her realization that she and Draco shared a sense of humor.

“You look sad,” Daphne said without lifting her eyes, her arms folded across the tops of her knees as she stared into the flames. “Something on your mind?”

The corner of Draco’s mouth twitched, and his eyes were soft as he, too, failed to look at his friend. “Not sad, just thinking.”

“Best I get out of the way then, I can already see the smoke coming out of your ears.”

Draco didn’t crack so much as a smile, his face looking haunted as the crackling fire cast long, dark shadows on his already gaunt face. Instead, he rested his head in his arms with an expression far too wary for a fifteen-year- old to wear.

“You can talk to me, you know,” Daphne said quietly, her mouth set in a firm line. “I’ll listen if you want. I won’t say a word.”

Draco’s expression twisted as he weighed his options, his eyes narrowed. “I’ve…I’ve got a bad feeling, is all.”

“About what? Fifth Year?”

Silence sat between them as Draco thought about how to reply, and something strangely honest flitted across his face too quickly for Daphne to understand what he was saying. “Yeah,” he admitted half-heartedly. “I’m… stressed.”

“…Stressed.”

“Yes.”

Daphne nodded and she turned her cornflower blue eyes towards him, inching her way closer to her friend. “I get it,” she replied. “I am, too.”

Draco winced. It had been the elephant in the room as of late, that Daphne was currently only a year younger than her own mother when she married and got pregnant with her firstborn. It was times like this that he couldn’t help but pity her and the old-fashioned philosophy Claude Greengrass had raised his daughters with. Draco’s own duties as the firstborn, the only heir, and his mother and father’s son were burdensome on their own, but he couldn’t imagine being forced to marry some wrinkly old man three times his age on top of all of that.

He looked at the melancholy expression on Daphne’s face and wondered when he’d seen her smile last. Her golden blonde hair draped around her arms and shoulders like a curtain, and a surge of protectiveness thrummed in his chest.

“Fifth Year will be good for you,” he said assuredly. “Have you thought about what O.W.L. exams you’ll take?”

Daphne let out a breathy laugh. “Draco,” she admonished. “That’s not funny.”

“What? You’ll take them, surely?”

A long sigh. Draco’s eyes widened. “Your…your dad won’t even let you take them?”

“Draco…“

“He can’t just force you to sit them out. That’s _humiliating_.”

It hadn’t even been much of an argument back at home when the conversation had first arisen, but the strange ache in her heart at losing the chance to take N.E.W.T. level Care of Magical Creatures still ripped through her whenever she thought about it for too long.

“ _Draco,”_ she said warningly, her voice quiet but full of bite. “It’s not worth it, alright?”

The blonde boy looked defeated at this, his shoulders sinking. With a somewhat hopeful look in his eyes, he glanced over at his equally sullen friend. “If…if I said yes to a betrothal with you, would you be able to take them then?”

Daphne inhaled sharply, and she shook her head at him as threateningly as she could muster. “Pansy is _right over there,”_ she whisper-yelled. “Keep your voice down!”

“I’m just asking, Daphne. I could say that I want you to get an education- I don’t have any use for an empty-headed wife, he won’t try to negotiate if I accept it. I’m still of a higher station than you are, he’d be stupid to try and argue.”

It was a kind gesture, she’d admit, but the prospect of getting married solely to take _exams_ filled her with a feeling akin to total emptiness. Draco hated nothing more than being refused the things he wanted, however- so she smiled at him in a way that didn’t meet her eyes and shook her head. “Pansy and Astoria _both_ would have my head if I ever married you. You must know that.”

Any looks of longing or hope left Draco’s expression and instead, his face morphed into his infamous Malfoy preen. Smirking to himself, he let out a laugh and squinted at her. “So… little Astoria Greengrass is still hopelessly in love with me, then?”

The thought of her ailing little sister, pale-faced and clammy with sweat in her four-poster bed the newly allocated healing room on their estate, forced Daphne to lurch forward towards the Firewhisky and take another swig. “Shut it. She’d never forgive me if she knew I told you,” she said tiredly.

Draco still smirked, and Daphne was glad to see that his troubled expression had left even if it was at her and her sister’s disposal. “So much has changed, but so many things have stayed the same,” he said cockily.

“Prat.”

“And…that’s all it is, right?” he asked too-casually. “You wouldn’t accept being married to me because of Parkinson and Astoria, and those are the only reasons, yeah?”

Looking at one of her oldest friends, his pale blonde hair looking nearly white from the glow of the fire and his sunken features, she nodded. _Liar,_ she thought to herself. _You don’t love him. You’d never love him like that, no more than you could ever love Theo or Blaise or any of these boys you were raised beside. Being married to Draco would be like being married to your brother._

“Of course, Draco,” Daphne fibbed smoothly, placing a gentle hand on his arm for added effect. “You’re a catch and you know it. Unfortunately, Pansy and Astoria know it too. And my thoughts are on a million other things…marriage isn’t one of them. I need Astoria to get better, she’s taken a turn for the worst lately. But if things were different, I’d be your wife any day.”

It was the right thing to say, if Draco’s uncharacteristically red cheeks were proof of the believability of her answer. Yet somehow, Daphne felt strange as she said the last part, the lie, as it slipped off her tongue as easily as the champagne had slipped down her throat. She had no desire to be married to Draco, none at all, and it scared her that a simple arm touch and a dimpled smile could convince him otherwise.

Draco was quiet for a moment. “I’ll look into it,” he said seriously, his eyes boring into the side of her head. “I’ll see if we have anything in the libraries about blood curses. There’s got to be something more than nobody’s found yet. She’ll get better, I’ll see to it.”

Daphne felt relief and rage at his optimism, but let neither of them show. She desperately wanted to ask him if he thought her stupid, if he hadn’t thought that maybe she had already looked into every book ever written for something more than what they already knew about Astoria’s prognosis. She wanted to snap and tell him that he couldn’t make her little sister by sheer force of will, unlike how he achieved everything else.

And another part of her felt incredible gratitude that she had a friend so generous that he was willing to give up his own time and energy to help her. It wasn’t a situation that could be helped, obviously, and there was a good chance he was only doing it because he had a crush on her bigger than either of them knew what to do with, but she was still grateful.

“Thanks, Draco,” she whispered.

At the end of the day, she had accepted that any illusion of choice about life was simply that. Daphne Greengrass had long-since accepted that her life was not her own to live, and the life she did have would be a miserable one at any rate. 

It was just another part of her Pureblood duty, after all.


	2. Of Failed Potions and Forced Arrangements

Neville Longbottom was, despite the rumors, much more than some common fool.

He had no false ideas about who and what he was; he had a thorough sense of his own self-importance (or lack of). He was both lucky and unlucky in all the ways that mattered- in his short life he had lost more than most people he knew, yet he was fortunate enough to have family and friends to rely on. He was unlucky enough to be the son of war heroes; unlucky to be the clumsy disappointment that would never quite live up to the legacy set before him. He was evaded most of the existential problems Harry Potter had- he had no part in some bigger master plan, he wasn’t some all-powerful wizard merely hoping to live to see eighteen, and he certainly didn’t have the pressure of the wizarding world riding on his coattails waiting for something _big_ to finally happen _._

Neville was privileged to be surrounded by success, even if he had nothing to contribute himself. He was generally well-liked even if he didn’t like himself, he had friends even though he was by no standard anyone’s closest confidante. He was known by association, he compensated for his own lack of natural talent with hard work, and by some miracle, he did have people in his life that genuinely loved him.

But loneliness always had a way of filling in the cracks where talent and intelligence and charm refused to fill. Any emptiness he ever felt had been filled with this viscous, suffocating thing that reminded him of how his entire life was a series of trials in which he fell short; a strange feeling not unlike a cushion in that he could choose to take comfort in it or risk being smothered. 

Intellectually he understood that being lonely hardly made any sense when he was constantly surrounded by people he liked, and he knew that his issues were hardly a blip on anyone’s radar considering every year seemed to behold some massive lifechanging shift that seemed to bring more and more doom to the student body of Hogwarts and the entirety of Wizard Britain.

So, Neville got by.

Because all the same, he was the luckiest unlucky wizard he’d ever known. And that was more than a lot of people could say for themselves…at least, that’s what he told himself.

This year, however, Neville vowed he’d put in some effort. After weeks of arguing with his grandmother she had _finally_ allowed him to get his teeth fixed after a quick trip to a local Healer, and while they still weren’t perfect and a gap between his two front teeth seemed irreparable, they were certainly better than the buck teeth he had before. He had even sprouted up in height a few inches, which made him look just slightly leaner than he did in his Fourth Year. He’d be heading off into this school year with Trevor and his new _Mimbulus mimbletonia_ in tow, and while nobody he knew would care, there was something in him that swelled with pride at the fact that he had one of the rarest plants in existence in his possession.

Fifth Year was already starting off on a strong note, and he allowed himself to maybe, just maybe, feel a little bit of hope.

* * *

Neville would be the first to admit that he’d made a clear error in judgement bringing his new plant onto the Hogwarts Express.

His excitement for the new year quickly diminished into shame as Ginny _scourgified_ the Stinksap left behind after he had made one of the dumbest mistakes in years, the smell still looming in the small train car. Harry looked terribly unhappy after interacting with Cho Chang as he sat covered in the stinky stuff; his face morphed into an expression Neville couldn’t ignore if he tried. Had he not been such a clutz, had he not been such a clumsy idiot who seemed to fall flat on his own face at every turn, maybe Harry wouldn’t look semi-murderous beside him.

Ron and Hermione, who had disappeared to who-knows-where prior to their arrival, finally sat down in their shared train car and seemed ignorant to the still permeating Stinksap smell left behind by his _Mimbulus mimbletonia._ “I’m starving,” Ron complained, the words unsurprising to everyone in the too-tight bench seats since food seemed to never leave his mind. Grabbing a Chocolate Frog from Harry and carelessly throwing the wrapper onto the floor, he leaned his head back with his eyes closed. 

Hermione wrinkled her nose and picked up his poorly disposed waste, balling the wrapper in her hand as she gave him a half-heated glare. “Well, there are two fifth-year prefects from each House,” Hermione said exhaustedly, her tone disgruntled. “A boy and girl from each.”

Neville leaned in curiously. “Yeah?” he asked.

“And guess who’s a Slytherin prefect?” Ron said snidely.

Harry scoffed. “Malfoy,” he replied abruptly, his tone doing little to disguise his hatred for one of seemingly many arch-nemeses he’d acquired throughout the last four years at school.

“’Course.”

“And that _complete cow_ Pansy Parkinson,” Hermione growled out, her voice taking on a vicious tone Neville had only ever heard her use when talking about the dark-haired Slytherin girl. “How she got to be a prefect when she’s thicker than a concussed troll is a mystery to me. I could have _sworn_ it was going to be given to Daphne Greengrass…at least that might have been halfway bearable... but now we’ve been saddled with two of Slytherin’s worst. _Lucky us_.”

Neville blinked, confused how Pansy Parkinson was any different from another girl he knew to be just as Slytherin and just as Pureblooded. From his own experience, he couldn’t recall any Purebloods in the green-clad house that openly rejected the close-minded philosophies that preceded them.

He could say with some level of certainty Hermione wouldn’t have fared any better with either girl in the Prefect position, but he stayed quiet.

“Who’s Hufflepuff?” Harry asked interestedly.

Ron sighed. “Ernie Macmillan and Hannah Abbott.”

“And Anthony Goldstein and Padma Patil for Ravenclaw,” Hermione piped up.

“You went to the Yule Ball with Padma Patil,” Luna said vaguely, looking over at Ron from her seat.

“Yeah, I know I did.”

“She didn’t enjoy it very much,” Luna informed him. “She doesn’t think you treated her very well, because you wouldn’t dance with her. I don’t think I’d have minded. I don’t like dancing very much.”

With the exception of a startled giggle from Ginny, an awkward silence fell between them at her rather strange comment, but Ron shook his head from his thoughts to continue his rant. “We’re supposed to patrol the corridors every so often, and we can give out punishments if people are misbehaving. I can’t wait to get Crabbe and Goyle for something…”

Hermione sputtered, her mouth gaping. “You’re not supposed to abuse your position, Ron!”

“Yeah right, because Malfoy won’t abuse it at all.”

“So you’re going to descend to his level?”

“No, I’m going to make sure I get his mates before he gets mine.”

“For heaven’s sake, Ron…“

“-You said you thought Daphne Greengrass was going to be a Prefect?” Luna interrupted curiously, her face blank and passive.

Hermione’s righteous indignation simmered as she looked at the Ravenclaw girl, and she nodded. “Yes,” she replied. “She… she was actually quite talented in our classes, I just thought-“

“She’s always in Madam Pomfrey’s. I’ve seen her with Professor Snape on the way to the Medical Wing. Maybe something’s wrong with her, and that’s why she’s not a Prefect,” Luna interrupted again, her eyes shifting as she seemed to ruminate in her own thoughts.

Harry had lost interest in the conversation minutes ago as he busied himself reading Luna’s edition of _The Quibbler_ with a furrowed brow, but he glanced up at the blonde. “What do you mean?”

“Daphne Greengrass. Sometimes she’ll leave dinner in the Great Hall very suddenly, haven’t you ever noticed? Professor Snape will pull her away from her meal, she always looks terribly sad.”

An uncomfortable silence fell over all of them.

“You think she’s ill?” Hermione asked bewilderedly.

Luna looked at her patiently, her expression passive as she looked at the wild-haired brunette. “She could be ill…it would make sense, she always looks like she hasn’t slept a wink. But who can ever be sure with Slytherins? Maybe she’s been infested with Wrackspurts.”

“No offense, but why should any of us care?” Ron asked. Luna shrugged.

“I don’t know,” she answered dreamily. “I just thought it was interesting, that she’s always disappearing and she looks like she’s dying. But maybe only I would, my father has always said that I have very niche interests.”

And with that, the rest of the train ride was quiet. 

* * *

_“And we must unite inside her, or we’ll crumble from within.”_

The Sorting Hat’s words plagued Neville’s thoughts ever since the Sorting Ceremony as he tried to navigate through this new-and-drastically-unimproved Hogwarts. He felt as if the rug had been ripped out right from under him; between the tensions flying high between Seamus and Harry in their dormitory and the overall doom-impending feeling he got in his stomach as his Fifth Year started off with both a bang and a whimper, Neville had never felt more unsure of his place in the mess that had once been Hogwarts. 

Sitting in Snape’s class brought on both old and new anxiety, welcome and unwelcomed in its familiarity. For all the ways he felt he’d matured, Professor Snape always had a way of managing to reduce Neville into the shaky little boy he was in his First Year; petrified at making one wrong move in fear that he’d be embarrassed in front of his classmates. The Potions professor stalked around the silent class, his looming, dark presence casting a sweeping shadow of gloom over his students.

“Before we begin today’s lesson, I think it appropriate to remind you that next June you will be sitting an important examination, during which you will prove how much you have learned about the composition and use of magical potions,” Snape began, his cold tone echoing off of the stone walls. “Moronic though some of this class undoubtedly are, I expect you to scrape an ‘Acceptable’ in your O.W.L., or suffer my…displeasure.”

It was impossible _not_ to notice Snape’s heated gaze as he lingered on Neville. He merely gulped as he tried his best to avoid eye contact, his fingers fiddling underneath the table with a loose hem. It wasn’t a secret that he could barely get through Potions without Hermione’s help, and the older he became, the crippling humiliation of having to burden her with his lack of knowledge had only grown. 

“After this year, of course, many of you will cease studying with me. I take only the very best into my N.E.W.T. Potions class, which means that some of us will certainly be saying goodbye,” Snape said wistfully. The thought of saying good riddance to his worst students seemed apparently too good to be true. “But we have another year to go before that happy moment of farewell, so whether you are intending to attempt N.E.W.T. or not, I advise all of you to concentrate your efforts upon maintaining the high-pass level I have come to expect from my O.W.L. students.”

With that, the professor quickly delivered the instructions for the day’s lesson. They’d be mixing a particularly finnicky potion that showed up on the O.W.L.s called the Draught of Peace, and Neville couldn’t help but see how ironic it was that a potion meant to help anxiety was causing him to sweat uncontrollably at the mere thought of only having an hour and a half to brew.

Neville was self-admittedly not the brightest flame in the candelabra, and Potions class always seemed to have its own special way of throwing blows at his already fragile self- esteem. The very prospect of having Snape breathing down his neck, watching him make mistake after mistake without ever helping him actually fix them, made his molars grind together in the back of his mouth. He could tolerate feeling stupid, he could even tolerate being embarrassed in front of his peers- Merlin knew it happened often enough that one could only continue on by accepting what he couldn’t change.

What he couldn’t tolerate was the inability to try again; the lack of improvement. Neville’s failures had always been dismissed without a second glance, the disappointment of his grandmother or an instructor more than obvious as they waved away his mistake with a flick of their wand. But there was no rectification, no redo.

How in the hell was he ever supposed to learn if nobody ever gave him any time to get better?

Neville was only a half hour into his potion brewing when he realized somewhere along the way he had lost track of how many times he had stirred his cauldron. Horror dawned on him, and suddenly, he also realized he couldn’t remember which direction he had stirred his cauldron in either. Had it been eight times, or nine? Did he start off clockwise or counter?

He felt some relief that Harry seemed to be failing just as spectacularly, even if he felt a little cruel comparing their work. Hermione’s potion looked perfect per usual, with the silvery vapor misting over the cauldron in classical textbook perfection. Neville’s, on the other hand, looked like quickly drying cement.

Frustration forced a tremor in his hands as he racked his eyes over the blackboard trying to find when and where things had gone wrong. Maybe he could redo it after all if he could somehow discreetly rid of the current substance in his cauldron, or at the very least, maybe if Snape walked by and asked him what he’d done wrong and he could actually tell him the correct answer, he’d scrape by for today.

“Looks like pure shit, Longbottom,” sneered a nasally voice from a few tables away. Not even bothering to turn his head, Neville ignored Draco’s chuckling and continued to rack his eyes over the blackboard. Where had it all gone downhill? Had he started incorrectly, or did he manage to make a mess of his potion just a few steps ago?

He just needed to trace back his steps, he needed to…

“Well, Mr. Longbottom, it seems as though your potion-making skills have gone unchanged over the holiday.”

Almost comically, Neville slowly lifted his head to meet his professor’s eyes, who stared back at him with a less than impressed expression as his gaze flickered between the boy in front of him and the strangely thick, steel colored sludge in his cauldron. “Yes,” he said quietly, knowing that an attempt to debate with the greasy haired man was a moot point at best.

“Well?”

“Professor Snape?”

“Haven’t you a clue as to what you’ve done wrong?”

Neville’s heart pounded against his ribs, and a bead of sweat trickled from the back of his skull down his robes. If only he had a few more minutes to look back, if only he could _remember._

Snape hummed to himself affirmatively. “I shall assume your silence speaks for itself, Longbottom.”

_Stupid. Stupid!_

“Miss Greengrass, would you mind taking a step over here and assessing Mr. Longbottom’s potion?” Snape ordered, his question holding little room for argument. Immediately, the Slytherins in the room broke out into vicious giggles in anticipation for their classmate to show up the resident Hogwarts fool.

A golden-haired blonde girl Neville recognized from classes before stepped over to the table, her eyes half-lidded in boredom and her mouth set in a firm line. Her hair was pulled back into a complicated looking braid with a soft blue ribbon tying the end, and exhausted, dark circles haunted the blank expression on her face. “Professor?” she asked in a monotone droll.

“Miss Greengrass, please take a look at Mr. Longbottom’s cauldron and accurately describe to me what went wrong and _why.”_

The girl blinked at Neville, unamused despite the cackling of her peers, and glanced down at the concoction barely resembling a potion below them. “Did you let this simmer for seven minutes?” she asked. She had a higher-pitched voice, and Neville realized he hadn’t thought he’d ever heard her speak before.

_Did he? Had it been a whole seven minutes, had he even kept time? Maybe he confused that with seven stirs… yes, that sounded vaguely familiar…_

“Uh…well, I think-“

“No,” she sighed, sounding completely drained at the suggestion of his incompetence. “Didn’t think so.”

Turning towards the professor, she shrugged. “Suppose that’s what happened then, Professor,” she said tonelessly. “It thickened the potion too quickly. Ruined the entire thing. Is that all, sir?”

It was one of the oddest exchanges he’d ever seen the Potions professor have, and any laughter that had come from the Slytherins came to an abrupt stop as the girl and Snape glanced at each other- the professor’s eyes conveying genuine confusion, and the girl’s eyes completely vacant of anything that could indicate what she was thinking.

“Rid your cauldron of your…potion, Longbottom. Please see me after class.”

Neville nodded at his professor, and he looked up as the man seemed to whisper something in the blonde girl’s ear before stalking away across the room. Catching eyes with Hermione, who was watching the scene with interest, he gave her a brief shrug. Her nose wrinkled in reply.

Snape decided to move his bullying over to Harry; probably seeking the comfort that came with picking on his least favorite student after that odd display if Neville had to guess.

Dread filled his gut as he thought of having to talk to Snape at the end of class- the clock seemed to be ticking by at a faster speed than usual. What could his professor want to discuss that wasn’t already obvious to the both of them as well as the entire Hogwarts student body? He knew he was an idiot, and he saw little point in the professor taking his own personal time to discuss that.

And to make matters worse, the sludge he’d made was sticking to the sides of his cauldron like somebody had cast a Sticking Charm on the mysterious substance. As he worked at gouging out his failed assignment, even more sweat prickled at his hairline and he rolled up his sleeves to alleviate some of the heat working through his body. _Merlin, how degrading._

While Neville had always enjoyed laborious work, enjoying the way his hands ached after ridding the greenhouse of weeds and the way the wind would chill the sweat cooling at the base of his spine after lifting heavy potted plants, there was a distinct feeling of pressure that came with any physical labor he had to do in Potions. Among the students in his year, Neville had probably spent the most time scrubbing out the inside of his cauldron, his forearms strained as he pushed a chainmail pad around the basin of the large black pot. _Only advanced magic can be used to clean out potion residue. Spells can interact with previous contents if not performed correctly,_ Snape had told him once. _And considering you cannot even brew a basic potion, you certainly will not be able to use the magic needed to rid of it._

He bit the side of his cheek in aggravation. One by one, students from their class left after turning in their assignments and it was obvious that Neville would be staying to speak with Snape, not for the first or fifth or fifteenth time.

But yet as Hermione and Harry sent him pitying looks as he continued to scrub the greyish sludge from the inside of his cauldron, as Seamus and Dean shot him respectful nods to indicate that they’d see him later, he looked around and saw that he was in fact _not_ the last one remaining.

He was one of two.

* * *

Neville considered himself a respectful person. He’d like to think that after years of being nonsensically berated by one August Longbottom, he had learned to keep his nose out of business that didn’t concern him, but he was still a teenage boy.

And teenagers were nothing if not nosy. Who could blame him if his eyes shot up towards the scene in front of the classroom not once, but a few times?

The first thing he noticed once he realized Daphne Greengrass, of all people, had stayed behind after class was the hauntingly solemn look on her face. Luna had described it perfectly on the train; she looked incredibly grave. It was as if the expression on her face was permanently fixed into something akin to the expression one made when finding out bad news, a constant look of the sweeping sort of sadness Neville had really only associated with Moaning Myrtle.

The second thing he realized was that he could only see her expression because she kept shooting glances at him as she spoke to their professor. Neville’s heart beat a little faster at the implications of why that could be; unsure of what Snape could possibly have to say to one of his students about one of Fifth Year’s arguably biggest failures. Her golden-blonde hair still tucked away in that ornate, complex braid pulled behind her swayed from side to side as she seemed to shake her head at whatever their instructor was saying. As Daphne looked at Neville scrubbing away in embarrassment, her eyes wide with apparent shock and maybe even a bit of dismay, he felt himself deflate even more.

The third thing he discerned from the situation was the few words he was able to make out from their conversation as Daphne’s voice climbed in volume. Her cheeks had paled as she looked back at Neville, and her mouth moved quickly as her eyes searched Snape’s. While he couldn’t hear the entire conversation from his distance, the words he was able to catch from their flurried argument was all he needed.

_“Professor… Longbottom…would not be the greatest idea.”_

_“…Extra credit…You may need it.”_

_“My father… inappropriate…”_

_“…Confidential matter.”_

There were few things in Neville’s life he had little patience for and being discussed as if he wasn’t on the other side of an empty classroom was one of them. The entire exchange made his palms sweat and his teeth grind together, and as he began to discard the last of the goop inside his cauldron, he prepared himself for whatever torture Snape decided to implement along with one of his peers.

“Longbottom. If you wouldn’t mind joining us.”

Neville closed his eyes. Rolling up his sleeves, his hands still mildly sticky from the substance he had cleaned out only moments before, he wondered if his nerves would allow him to cast a cleansing charm as he crossed the room.

Snape shot him a glower at his slowness. Neville thought better of it, and he decided not to.

Daphne looked away from both men, her arms folded protectively in front of her chest as she stuck her nose high in the air snobbishly. Her cheeks had gone from ashen white to pale pink in seconds.

“Mr. Longbottom,” Snape said slowly, his voice as condescending as usual. “I have a proposal for you that I believe may be of… some benefit to you. And by benefit to you, I mean a benefit to me, because it will possibly decrease your burdensome behavior.”

Neville nodded slowly. His eyes flickered to the Slytherin girl, who turned her head further away.

“Yes, sir?” he asked.

Snape looked over at Daphne and rolled his eyes before looking back at the Gryffindor. “As I illustrated earlier in class today, I am expecting every single one of my students to receive an ‘Acceptable’ on their O.W.L. exam at the very least,” he explained. “Despite it being rather…early… in the term, I don’t believe it would be incorrect for me to say that receiving such a score, in your case, is extremely unlikely.”

Neville had expected it, but his eye still felt aflutter with an irritated twitch. His jaw clenched. “Yes, Professor. Potions… is difficult for me.”

Snape nodded. “Miss Greengrass is one of my top students. She has been since she was a First Year,” he replied smoothly. “I believe it may be in your best interest, and mine, if you receive some one-on-one tutoring in order to decrease your chances of completely failing out of this course. That is not to say that even with tutoring that such a thing wouldn’t happen, with your track record.”

Neville’s mouth opened and shut abruptly, his nose wrinkled and brows pinched together. “But Professor… Hermione Granger tutors me. She’s tutored me since we came to Hogwarts.”

Snape’s eyes lit up furiously, and Daphne finally snapped his gaze over to look at him with a raised eyebrow. She looked incredibly unimpressed, and Neville quickly realized he must have made some sort of error. “That isn’t to say I wouldn’t appreciate the help,” he stammered. “I just… I think I work best with Hermione, sir.”

The professor’s glare darkened and Daphne’s mouth opened in protest. Neville couldn’t believe that in all of sixty seconds into a conversation, he had managed to insult both parties completely.

“And may I ask you, Mr. Longbottom,” Snape asked dangerously. “How well you believe that’s going for you? Considering the lack of progress you have made since you arrived here five years ago, I would argue that perhaps Miss Granger’s methods have proven…insufficient.”

Neville felt indignation rise in his chest, but he remembered that the only reason the conversation had even swung in this direction was because of his own stupid mouth. “Yes, sir,” he replied lowly. “I understand.”

“You will work on Miss Greengrass’s schedule. I expect that you will put forward your greatest efforts, Longbottom. I would hate to be even more disappointed than I am now.”

“…Yes, sir.”

Snape nodded, and looked over at his Slytherin student. “Miss Greengrass, is there anything you would like to add?”

The blonde girl blinked. “No, Professor,” she gritted out.

“Then you are both dismissed.”

As if she couldn’t get away fast enough, Daphne shouldered her fine leather bag at such a speed one would think she had another class to get to when in fact, her schedule was done for the day. Neville tried to catch her eye, but she stared in front of her in obvious anger as she threw her parchment and quill into her bag.

Before she left the classroom, she turned to him without looking at him. Her eyes still held that blank, dazed expression as she looked in front of her and refused to make eye contact. “Longbottom,” she bit out. “I will be available after dinner. We can meet here, and I’ll see where you’re at starting with last year’s coursework. I’ve not a clue where to start with you. Do _not_ be late.”

The demanding tone to her words stunned Neville enough where he could barely process what she said as she started to head out of the class. Luckily his brain caught up to speed, and he jogged slightly behind her with his own satchel.

“Wait, uh, D-Daphne!” he exclaimed. “Do… um, did you mean… so you want to meet today? Like, tonight?”

Daphne rolled her eyes, giving him an impatient expression so familiar Neville could practically hear his grandmother’s voice in his thoughts making a stern remark about his empty- mindedness. “No, Longbottom,” she sighed exasperatedly, sarcasm dripping off of every word. “I clearly meant in June of Seventh Year.”

Neville said nothing, but the furrow in his forehead made her let out an annoyed huff.

“…Merlin’s bloody beard, _yes. Tonight.”_

“Got it. I… Should I bring anything? Like, should I bring- “

“For Godric’s sake, Longbottom, bring what you normally bring to class!” Daphne snapped, meeting him with a withering glare. “And as I said. _Do. Not. Be. Late.”_

Swallowing roughly and nodding as eagerly as his head would allow, he scrambled over to the door with his satchel and immediately bumped into an irate-looking Pansy Parkinson.

“Daph, come on alrea- what are _you_ still doing here, Longarse?” she asked in her signature raspy voice. Ron in years past had made jokes that Parkinson sounded like she’d started smoking out of a pipe the minute she was birthed from the womb, with a voice like that.

Neville’s jaw ticked, and he didn’t reply. Daphne somehow managed to sneak her away around him, sliding right past and attaching herself to Pansy’s side like their arms had been enchanted with Sticking Charms. “Let’s go, Pans,” Daphne said quietly, her tone back to its toneless monotony.

Taking off quickly, Pansy and Daphne strutted down the hall in-sync. But not before Pansy shot him one last look over her shoulder, a disgusted curl of her lip as her raven-haired bob bounced with every step. Daphne, meanwhile, threw her focus forward as she picked up their pace exponentially.

Neville gulped.

All he could do now was dread the end of the day, and hope that somehow tutoring wouldn’t go as terribly as he thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a review and a kudos, let me know what you think!


	3. Everything Goes My Way

Longbottom was running late. And Daphne was losing her patience.

After dinner, without any further explanation of where she was going as her friends watched her leave with confused expressions, she headed to the Potions classroom with approximately four minutes and thirty seconds to spare. Giving a once over to the pitch-dark room, Daphne lit an _Incendio_ charm at an array of candles and torches that adorned the wall as the moon rose higher in the sky. If she were an honest person, she would have admitted it was a bit unsettling to stand all alone in the dark, abandoned classroom.

But luckily for her, she wasn’t an honest person, and so she merely ignored the goosebumps under her skin as she placed her materials on the table in front of her and took a seat facing the large clock on the opposite wall. _Tick tock, Longbottom,_ she thought to herself. Internally, a part of her hoped he wouldn’t show up at all even if it was at the cost of her wasting her time so she could tell Snape that at the very least, she had tried.

And with that passing thought, the memory of the conversation from earlier in the day brought her blood to a boil all over again. It was so like Snape to take advantage of a situation Daphne could do little about; to throw her around at his own disposal to the charity cases that composed of her peers.

_“Miss Greengrass,” Snape said calmly, his eerily focused eyes meeting her shifty ones. “I have a proposal for you.”_

_“Yes, Professor?”_

_The man opened his mouth, but a none-the-wiser Hufflepuff interrupted them as he slid over his potion flagon across the Professor’s desk nervously. Instead of the silvery color it was supposed to be, it resembled a similar appearance to rain-soaked cement. Snape sneered at the boy as he scampered off, and with a wave of his hand, the flagon flew into a waste bin._

_“At the risk of sounding…complementary, you are one of my most gifted students,” Snape droned on uncomfortably. Daphne’s eyes widened in disbelief._

_“…Oh.”_

_“A miraculous achievement, undoubtedly,” he replied sarcastically. “Am I to understand that you will be looking to pursue Potions at the N.E.W.T. level?”_

_Daphne’s gaze immediately flickered to the floor, and she distractedly drew a small circle with her black ballet flat. “…No, Professor Snape,” she replied quietly. “I don’t believe that will be possible for me.”_

_Snape’s lip curled, and he rose an eyebrow skeptically. “Not possible?” he asked mockingly. “Would you like to provide me a reason as to why?”_

_“My… my father does not believe it is necessary for me to pursue any N.E.W.T. level courses, sir.”_

_The Potions professor stared at her, assessing her with an unwavering gaze as embarrassment clawed at her chest. After a moment too long, he nodded, and cleared his throat. “Very well, then,” he replied casually. “Be that as it may, I would still like to move forward with my proposal. I believe it would be in everyone’s best efforts if you were placed as Mr. Longbottom’s tutor for the rest of the academic term.”_

_While Daphne was completely unprepared for the entirety of their conversation, she was even less prepared to be assigned such a task. Her eyes shot open in shock, and she vehemently shook her head as more and more students left the classroom._

_“Professor Snape, with all due respect,” she stammered. “I do not believe… I do not believe that I would be allowed to do that, be a tutor, I mean. I don’t… it would not be the greatest idea.”_

_Snape looked at her with an expressionless face and narrowed eyes. “Are you aware that in the last term alone, you missed over fifteen full days of all of your coursework?”_

_Daphne inhaled sharply, and she nodded her head._

_“Am I correct in assuming this was to tend to your sister’s medical needs? The Slytherin Prefects of last year reported to me that you were constantly fetched by Madam Pomfrey when Astoria had felt the most ill, correct?”_

_She nodded again._

_“Then there is a chance that the same pattern may repeat again this year, Miss Greengrass. I will consider this extra credit as compensation for any class time you may lose. You may need it,” he explained patiently._

_Indecision tore inside of her, and she huffed out a breath. “My father… well, he would find it inappropriate for me to be left to tutor a boy alone, Professor Snape.”_

_A flicker of a mean smirk rose to Snape’s face before it disappeared. “You nor your father need to worry for this is not an ordinary boy, Miss Greengrass. This is Longbottom, and I guarantee you there is little that he could do in any setting that would be considered a threat to your virtue,” he bit out. “As far as I’m concerned, the mentoring of a student is a confidential matter. I expect that you will treat it as such, as well.”_

Forced to agree under the circumstances, Daphne now awaited her “student” impatiently. She rose from her chair and with her arms folded across her chest, she paced back and forth around the classroom. Her ballet flats, the designer ones from the _Carneiro_ line that Pansy practically begged her to buy after not being able to find a size for herself, clicked against the stone floors as she lost herself in her thoughts.

Daphne didn’t have the slightest clue how to tutor someone. She had, of course, helped her friends out with certain assignments and she helped Astoria as much as she could, but that just… _different._ She wasn’t a remarkably patient person, a trait aggravated when in the presence of those she barely knew. It was obvious that if Longbottom was already pushing her buttons when they had yet to begin, their arrangement would surely go terribly.

That she was sure of.

And of course, she couldn’t fail to mention how he insulted her when they spoke to Professor Snape. Despite her own “willingness” to tutor him, or at least as far as he knew anyway, Daphne was generously donating her time to the lost cause that was teaching Neville Longbottom Potions. To insult her directly to her face by stating he preferred the help of _Granger,_ of all people, was a slap in the face.

Suddenly, the sound of a throat clearing disturbed the silence of the room.

“Um…hello?”

Daphne, who had been too wrapped in her thoughts to notice Longbottom’s presence, let out a horrified shriek that shook both Fifth Years in its volume. She backpedaled into the wall as her hand reached for her wand, her heart racing a mile a minute as she faced her intruder.

Neville’s eyes flew open comically as he jumped back, and he let out an equally startled yell at her screech.

She faced the sandy-haired boy as he stood paralyzed with his hands raised up in surrender, she and put a hand on her chest in an attempt to slow her thundering heartbeat. “Why would you _do that_?!” Daphne bit out. “Haven’t you a single idea how to announce yourself?!”

“I-I thought I did! I said… I said hello!”

“You scared the absolute… _you scared me!”_

“I’m sorry!”

Daphne closed her eyes and pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear. She could already feel a headache forming, and she took a breath to compose herself. “I am a girl waiting all by herself in a dark classroom. You shouldn’t just…surprise someone… like that, Longbottom. And you’re ten minutes late, by the way.”

Neville at least had the nerve to look sheepish, and he rubbed the back of his neck as his cheeks pinkened. “I’m really sorry,” he said as he walked further into the classroom. “I’ll know better

next time.”

_Ah, yes,_ Daphne thought to herself sardonically. _Next time._

Smoothing out her robes and shaking her head of her shaken nerves, she attempted to regain her poise and gave a short nod. “It’s… fine,” she replied, trying not to sound as irritated as she was. Disappointment formed as she realized that now, she’d have little excuse to give Snape since Neville had actually arrived. “Let’s just get started already.”

Neville blinked at her, but he nodded a half-second later and took a seat. He rubbed his trousers and patted his hands in a little rhythm as he waited. “Um… so I was sort of thinking, that um, since I didn’t really do very well on today’s potion we could redo- “

Daphne, not looking up as she began to set materials out in front of him, rose a hand to silence him. “No.”

“…No?”

“No,” she repeated. “We’re starting from the very, very beginning.”

The Gryffindor’s nose scrunched at her suggestion, and he let out a startled laugh. “I… I mean, we can do whatever you think is best, but- “

“-Good. That’s what I was planning on, too.”

“-I was sort of thinking we could… I don’t know, maybe we could…”

Daphne glanced at him, her eyes shifting into that half-lidded bored state he had seen earlier. She waited patiently for him to finish his sentence, or at least as patiently as she’d allow with her foot tapping against the stone floor.

“…That we could jump ahead, a bit? I just… I don’t want Professor Snape to think I’m wasting your time, by starting all the way at the beginning.”

“First of all,” she started calmly. “It’s only a waste of my time if you _do_ waste my time. Are you planning on doing that?”

“W-What?”

“Longbottom. Are you planning on wasting my time, or are you planning on putting effort into your work and listening to what I have to say?”

“Yes. Yes, of course…. I mean, not ‘yes’ as in ‘yes, I am planning on wasting your time,’ b-but ‘yes’ as in… I’ll work hard. And I’ll listen,” Neville answered in a confused jumble. Ignoring the stuttering and stammering, Daphne hummed.

“So listen to me now, and truly _listen_. Starting from the beginning is the only way I’ll know for sure where in the curriculum it is you need the most help. I… I don’t have a problem going back to the basics, if that’s what you need. But jumping ahead will _not_ help you,” she explained.

Merlin, the whole conversation felt eerily similar to the sit-downs she had to have Astoria about why she needed to be more attentive to her medical potion regimen. _“You need to take all of your potions, Astoria, your health is not a joke,”_ she'd tell her seriously.

_“But they taste disgusting! And they make my hands shake afterwards.”_

_“I think shaky hands are preferable over going into a coma, would you agree?”_

“Okay,” Neville replied. “The beginning it is, then.”

* * *

“Wrong.”

“Pay attention, Longbottom, _think.”_

“Nope. Start over.”

Daphne barely looked up from her book, a romance Pansy had smuggled her last term that she never got around to reading. She had placed a Glamour Charm on the front cover, which was a rather graphic illustration of a wizard kissing the daylight out of a witch, her back dipped and her foot popped in the air as they basked in the moonlight. Pansy and Millicent had made jokes about it for days, playfully imitating the woman on the cover as they leaned against their beds and popped their foot in the air, laying a hand across their forehead in faint. _“Oh, Nameless-and-Forgettable-Wizard-Number-Four, make LOVE to me!”_ Pansy had moaned in a fake high-pitched voice. Daphne smiled just remembering it. 

So as far as Neville was aware, she was reading a Transfiguration textbook. A rather small textbook, but she doubted he’d say anything about it anyway. She turned the page, knowing that she’d probably only manage to read half a page before she was interrupted again. 

_Thomasin ran after her lover, her long dress trailing in the mud as she felt tears stream down her face. “Wait!” she screamed, watching his profile get smaller and smaller as he walked farther away. “Don’t go, Christopher! I… I love you!”_

_The world seemed to freeze. She had finally confessed what Christopher had sought after all along. But was it enough?_

_Was she too late?_

_“I’ve loved you since we were children, Christopher!” she yelled as the blonde, muscular man came to a stop in his track. “I’ve always loved you. I WILL always love you, how couldn’t you know that? I love you, Christopher Woolsworthy. Irrevocably, irreconcilably, completely, and totally, LOVE-“_

“-I’m confused.”

Daphne sighed, and put the book down on the table she was sitting on top of. “Yes?” she asked him. “What’s confusing you?”

Neville stared down at the ingredients in front of him as if they were his natural-born enemy, and he slumped into his hands as he propped his head up onto the desk. “With Sleeping Draught, what does it even mean to add ‘three measures’? What measurement are they talking about? How am I supposed to know how much to put in?” he questioned.

Uncrossing her legs, Daphne jumped down from the table and walked over to where Neville was seated. “So you’re on the seventh step, correct?”

“Yes. Well… yes, I think so.”

“You _think_ so?”

“…Yes?”

Daphne let out another exasperated sigh. “Have you been counting the steps?”

“…No?”

With that, the blonde turned around and walked back over to her table. She opened her satchel and grabbed a piece of parchment, and then turned back around again and set it on his table.

“That’s your first problem,” she explained flippantly. “You’re losing track of where you are, and what’s going to wind up happening is the same thing that happened earlier. From now on, whenever you’re making a potion, get a piece of parchment out and start tallying off the steps was you go along. And whenever a step has a number to it, like a number of stirs or wand waves or a measurement, tally off every time you put one in your cauldron.”

Neville nodded eagerly, taking a quill out of his bag and dipping it in an inkwell as he absorbed her advice. He lifted the feather to the parchment in front of him, but his mood shifted abruptly and his mouth quirked to the side.

“But…doesn’t Professor Snape…well, he doesn’t allow us to have anything on our tables when we’re brewing. How will I do this in class?”

Daphne threw her hands up in the air dramatically and slammed them back down against her thighs. “Dear Godric, Longbottom, I’m your tutor. Not a miracle worker. Figure it out! Use a Glamour or count on your fingers like you’re five years old again, whatever works.”

The Gryffindor squinted his eyes determinedly and he let out an affirmative hum. “Got it,” he replied. “I’ll start doing that now.”

“Great.”

“Yes. And, um, t-thank you. For helping me. It really means a lot, I know… I’m cutting into your time, and everything. There’s probably a lot of other things you could be doing.”

“You’re welcome. And you’re correct,” she answered in a bored tone. What was it with Gryffindors and feeling the need to express their gratitude so plainly? Why couldn’t they just say ‘thank you’ like Slytherins, and merely repay the favor as to never leave anyone in any form of debt?

Glancing up at the clock, Daphne read the time and immediately cursed under her breath. “Well,” she said abruptly. She quickly walked back to her table and shoved her book into her satchel, and she threw the bag over her shoulder as Neville looked up at her in a mixture of confusion and alarm. “I am very late, so I must be going.”

“Wait!” Neville exclaimed, standing up from his chair. “Where…where are you going?”

“I have a previously scheduled appointment.”

“But…how am I going to clean all of this up?”

_7:32._ Godric, Astoria was going to be pissed off.

“Unfortunately, Longbottom, that is a problem you will once again have to solve on your own,” she said in a single breath. “Use those Gryffindor skills and put them to use.”

The boy nodded despite the unhappiness on his face, but Daphne couldn’t care less. She started out the door, and practically sprinted in the direction of the Hospital Wing until the sound of her name being called down the hallway forced her to halt in her steps.

“Daphne!” Neville yelled after her. He ran clumsily, and if she had to guess it was quite apparent that he had stumbled out of his chair and continued to run after her in one big, continuous stumble. “When…when are you available for next time?”

“Next time?” _Next time?_

_Oh. Right._

“Yes. For more tutoring. When can…when can I meet with you, again?”

Irritated at the disruption, and feeling even _more_ impatient as she realized she would be the brunt of Astoria’s anger due to her tardiness, she whipped around to face him and racked her brain for an answer.

“Uh….um….same time as today, on every day we have potions. Got it?”

“But…but what if I have…”

Daphne glared at him until his slack-jawed expression clamped shut, and he smiled lightly. “Got it.”

With a flutter of her fingers, she waved the boy away and walked as briskly as she could down the hallway.

* * *

“You’re _late.”_

An annoyed pop of Astoria’s blowing gum echoed in the empty hallway. Her lips were a dark, rosy pink from the crazyberry dye Drooble’s used in their candy, and her hip was cocked to the side. 

Daphne hands clutched her sides as she tried to regain her breath- she had broken out into a near-run as she crossed the castle grounds, knowing that every second she delayed their appointment was an additional second Astoria would undoubtedly hold against her. “Sorry, Asta. I’ll tell you all about it once you get settled, trust me. You’ll have a right laugh,” she apologized, hoping the penname and the promise of drama would sweeten her little sister up.

Astoria rolled her eyes and opened the door to the Hospital Wing. “Madam Pomfrey?” she called out as the huge, grey bow tied into her silky brown tresses bobbed to-and-fro in her search for the Matron of Hogwarts. “Madam Pomfrey? It’s Astoria and Daphne Greengrass, we’re _here_! Finally. But blame that on Daphne, not on me!”

“Astoria, I’ve told you once and I’ll tell you again. There is no need to yell after me, I promise you I can always tell _exactly_ when you and your sister arrive,” Madam Pomfrey scolded her sternly, waving a finger in dismay as she adjusted her Healer’s uniform.

“Sorry, Madam Pomfrey. I wouldn’t have held it against you if you forgot us completely, seeing as Daphne made us late and all. Making us wait practically an entire fortnight for her to make her grand arrival,” Astoria huffed dramatically. Daphne rolled her eyes and with an encouraging shove forward that was only a _little bit_ aggressive, her sister plopped down onto the medical cot and swung her feet underneath her.

A wave of exhaustion hit Daphne in a sudden enough way to shock her, and she found herself practically falling into the chair beside Astoria’s cot while she set her bag beside her. Noticing the gum still popping in her sister’s mouth, she routinely held out a hand towards the brunette.

“Give it.”

“What? No! I just unwrapped this one, what a waste!”

“Not my problem, Astoria,” Daphne told her tiredly. “Give it. You know you can’t chew that while you take your potions.”

With an overly- exaggerated sigh and roll of her eyes, the thirteen-year-old took the gum out of her mouth and shoved it in Daphne’s hand, and the older of the two rose from her chair to throw it into the medical waste bin beside the door.

“You’re such a spoilsport.”

“It’s a piece of blowing gum, take a moment to grieve and then get over it.”

Madam Pomfrey appeared from behind the divider that separated Astoria’s cots from the others, her hands filled with a rack of potions all engraved with the same initials, _A.T.G._

“Astoria,” the woman said kindly. “How are we feeling today? Any dizziness, nausea, muscle spasms?”

Lying back on the cot, Astoria rested her hands over her stomach and took a breath. “Just a bit of a headache, but that could be because Daph decided to drag her heels on the way here.”

Daphne sighed.

The Matron turned her back to the side table adjacent to the cot and set up the vials in the same order she had been assembling them in throughout the last three years and gave the girl a nod. “Just a headache? Nothing else?”

“Nope. Nothing else, today was a… better day.”

“Wonderful. Hopefully we’ll be seeing some more of those.”

“Yeah, that’d be sort of nice, now wouldn’t it?”

Handing Astoria the vial after vial, the Slytherin girl downed each potion and shuddered in disgust. Once she had consumed all eight of them, she laid back down on the cot and stared up at the ceiling.

“Okay, Miss Greengrass, now that I’ve written down that you’ve taken your potions, we will- “

“- Assess you for the next half-hour so you make sure I don’t die or anything. Got it,” Astoria interrupted gloomily. Daphne’s head shot up at her and she gave her sister a hard glare at the unnecessary attitude, but she turned towards the Matron anyway. “Thank you, Madam Pomfrey,” she said gratefully. “I’ll keep her company and come get you if anything happens.”

The older woman nodded and gave her a slight smile as she gathered the empty vials. “I shall see you in a half-hour, Astoria. And remember, if you need anything at all, I will be- “

“- Right next door. We know,” Astoria interrupted again.

Madam Pomfrey disappeared behind the divider, and Daphne looked at her sister with an unimpressed expression. “There’s no reason to be so rude, Astoria. Knock off the attitude.”

Astoria pouted in her cot, her mouth downturned in gloom. “You had me think you weren’t going to show up at all,” she sniffed. “I thought I was going to have to sit here all by myself.”

It was certainly possible that her little sister was laying on the pity-party a little thickly, but a surge of guilt rose in Daphne’s stomach. For a moment, she allowed herself to believe that Astoria had actually wanted her here and that it had nothing to do with the fact that she obligatorily needed her to be. Daphne placed a hand over the brunette’s and gave it a tight squeeze. “Never,” she promised. “I’m always here to keep you company.”

Astoria’s turned her head away from her and she looked away out of the window. “Well…good. Anyway, tell me what you wanted to tell me before, about whatever it was that kept you from being here on time.”

With a long exhale, Daphne explained how Professor Snape had placed her as Neville Longbottom’s tutor, a boy with a reputation of being one of the most awkward individuals to set foot in the Hogwarts halls. How she, among all of the students in Fifth Year Potions, was expected to somehow flip his grades around before they took their O.W.L.’s despite the fact that she wouldn’t even be taking them herself.

Did she leave out the part about her excessive absences last year, and how Snape had allowed her the opportunity to tutor in order to make up for any more classes she’d miss to take care of Astoria?

Yes. But if you asked her, she just didn’t believe it to be crucial to the story.

Astoria’s mouth fell open in an exaggerated shock, her hands clapping over her face as she tried to suppress the giggles that came with the image of her big sister, the beautiful blonde Slytherin every boy they knew had crushed on for at least some time, having to actually _acquaint herself_ and _speak_ to a boy that was almost prolifically cumbersome and embarrassing. Even _more_ so than the average Gryffindor.

“Daph- _neeee_ ,” she drawled out dramatically, the corners of her mouth curling at the images flashing in her head. “What are you…what are you going to _do?!”_

“What do you mean, what am I going to do? I’m going to tutor Longbottom and hope to Godric I can get through the term without being a laughingstock. It’s not as if I have options, Astoria,” Daphne bit out, feeling an uncharacteristic heat in her cheeks at the idea that there really wasn’t a way to get herself out of this. While it wasn’t rare for her to have to do things she felt absolutely detested, she had never been asked to _help_ someone else.

Astoria pursed her lips in an attempt to rid herself of her mischievous smile, and she glanced away once again. “Well,” she said loftily. “You were right after all. I did have a good laugh, thank you.”

Daphne smiled at her mockingly, and she took advantage of the silence to pull her journal and a quill out of her school satchel. She could tell Astoria would doze off any moment, and she tried to do any of her writing as far away from her roommates’ prying eyes as she could.

As Astoria’s eyes slipped shut, Daphne dipped her quill into the well she had set on the chair beside her and opened her journal up to a blank page.

_September 5 th, 1995_

_Today,_ she scribbled with the tip of her pen, _was an absolutely disastrous day._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave me a review and let me know what you think! How are y'all feeling about Daphne? What do you think her friends are going to think of her predicament? I wanna hear from you!


	4. Pretending

**TW: fatshaming at the end of the text**

Well, it’s not as if Neville was a _complete idiot,_ alright? He had seen Daphne, he knew what she looked like. She was a pretty girl, and one would have to be a fool not to think so.

He was a respectful bloke, or at least he’d like to think so. A bumbling, uncomfortable idiot most times, but he was _respectful._ He’d heard her speak all of a few times even though they’d been classmates for years, and even though she kept awful company, Daphne was quiet and reclusive and stayed far away from conflict.

So when Neville explained to his roommates all about how Daphne Greengrass was tutoring him, he tried to maintain a certain level of diplomacy given the fact that not only was she going helping him, but she was a…she was a _lady._ Like, a real _lady_.

He hadn’t grown up with a lot of girls like her, and it was evident. His Gran worked hard to keep him grounded in a way that differed from the other Pureblooded children he knew (the Weasley family being an exception). One’s social station was not a testament to one’s character, money couldn’t buy class, and a symphony of other life mottos followed him as his grandmother taught him from an early age how to separate himself from the complete and total prats among the Sacred Twenty-Eight.

Even though the roles of his and Daphne’s tutoring arrangement were clear, he had no idea how to interact with her. From the moment he accidentally scared the lights out of her upon his entrance into the classroom, soon followed by the moment she had told him in that posh, plummy accent that oozed of high social station, he knew talking to her was going to be very different from his talks with Hermione and Luna and Ginny and Hannah.

And yes, Neville still cringed when he thought about how his first real interaction with the Slytherin, his one shot at making a semi-good impression, had been interrupted by her own terror. And he cringed again when he recalled their first meeting to Harry, Ron, Dean, and Seamus, even though they laughed like he’d told them the funniest joke they’d ever heard. The only positive about the situation was that for the first time in the last few days, his misfortune had seemed to bring some level of amnesty between the infighting in their dormitory.

His thoughts circled in a loop. _Embarrassing, embarrassing, embarrassing._

“I can just imagine her now, ‘Dear Mr. Longbottom, how _dare_ you frighten me in my deep state of contemplation! Have you no _decency,_ you Gryffindor scum?’ “Seamus mocked in a high-pitched, Oxford-English accent. Everyone laughed including Neville at his half-accurate half-dramatized performance.

Dean looked at him thoughtfully, a twinkle in his eye. “I mean… at least she’s nice looking, right?” he asked, laying on his bed with his hands underneath his head. “That’s got to count for something.”

Seamus looked at him with a mixture of shock and disgust, recoiling as if Dean had told him something incredulous. “She’s a _Slytherin,_ Dean.”

“I’m just saying!”

“She’s friends with _Pansy_ bloody _Parkinson.”_

“God, forget I even said anything. Jeez.”

“…Anyway, how did it go, Nev?” Harry piped up, pointedly ignoring Seamus and Dean’s bickering. “Was it terrible?”

Truthfully, Neville thought it hadn’t gone nearly as badly as he’d expected. Daphne had seemed content to keep herself busy with a textbook as he started on some of the potions he’d failed to brew in years past, which he thought he preferred over Hermione and Professor Snape’s constant staring. Even though Hermione was a friend, one of his closest at Hogwarts though the competition wasn’t steep, she had a way of looking at him and his work like some impossible problem she just couldn’t figure out.

Daphne had barely spoken to him. The quiet was a welcomed transition from the anxiety that the sounds of beakers and vials clinking together and Snape’s footsteps across stone floor usually brought, and it conveniently allowed him to actually think things through and _focus_ for once.

And yet at the same time, with the exception of her one piece of advice, she hadn’t really… _helped_ him. He still felt just as confused leaving their meeting as he did going in, and if Neville was being honest with himself, he was a little afraid to admit to her that the only way he’d have a chance at passing Potions was if she gave him a little more assistance than she’d offered.

But it was only the first meeting. Things could change for the better, he was sure of it.

“Uh, it went fine,” he answered, surprised at his own answer. “She… she was nice.”

Harry grinned, his eyes twinkling with mirth. “But Hermione’s definitely better right, Neville?”

Guiltily, Neville smiled and nodded.

Ron let out a snort of a laugh and collapsed backwards onto his bed as if he had spent his day slaying dragons instead of merely attending a few classes. “Hope it stays that way, mate,” he told him. “Girls like that… well, they don’t need to be very _nice_ , do they?”

Harry looked over at him questioningly. “Wait, what’s that mean?” he asked him, his face screwed up in confusion. Ron sighed and sort of waved his hands around in a slow, lazy motion as he tried to gather his words, clearly unsure of how to verbalize his thoughts.

“Well… you know…” he started half-heartedly. “It’s… girls like Greengrass, they’re kind of…”

Everyone merely waited for him to finish his sentence, nodding along as if to encourage him as he stuttered and stammered.

“I’m just…maybe… I don’t know. Never mind.”

Later that night as Neville went to sleep, he tried to get Ron and Dean’s words out of his head. As he tossed and turned at stared up at the ceiling, he hoped that the weird, sick feeling in the bottom of his stomach was simply from the fact that he didn’t think it was very gentlemanly to talk about a girl so crudely… and nothing else.

* * *

Neville didn’t see Daphne again until Friday afternoon.

Having Potions twice a week grated on his nerves, if for no other reason than because it felt like he could never quite escape from underneath its crushing weight. Neville had no interest, _zero, none, nada_ , in ever pursuing the subject outside of his education, and the only thing that truly got him through each lesson was the fact that it was a lesson closer he was to the finish line of Fifth Year. 

But Snape was practically an angel in comparison to Professor Umbridge.

In fact, he’d take having Potions every day of the week over seeing the small, shrewd- looking woman in her pink sweater take the place Professor Lupin once occupied. There was something distinctly off about her, a strange stiffness about her presence that reminded Neville of the Barty Crouch Jr./ Mad- Eye Moody fiasco last year. Like an elastic band waiting to snap, Umbridge carried herself in a way that immediately indicated she was a woman for whom it didn’t take very much to push over the edge.

And Harry, with his heroic bravado and his commitment to _doing the right thing,_ proved that to be exactly the case.

“And what good’s theory going to be in the real world?” Harry contested with a near-roar as his eyes lit up with rage looking at the pink-clad woman. The back-and-forth between the Gryffindors and Professor Umbridge had forced Neville to shift nervously in his seat, and something clawed at his throat to join them. _Speak up, Neville. She’s wrong and you know it. Why don’t you just say something?_

_Why can’t you be brave?_

Professor Umbridge shot Harry a patient look. “This is school, Mr. Potter, not the real world.”

“So we’re not supposed to be prepared for what’s waiting out there?”

“There is nothing waiting out there, Mr. Potter.”

“Oh yeah?” Harry challenged, his newly- discovered temper flaring.

“Who do you imagine wants to attack children like yourselves?”

“Hmm, let’s think… maybe _Lord Voldemort?”_

The classroom’s reaction was immediate. A silence filled the room, and if Neville slipped off of his stool and quickly scrambled to his feet, he could only hope nobody noticed.

The sounds of gasps and quick inhales of breath seemed to fade into the background as the Gryffindor boy tried to quell his too-fast heartbeat. From the corner of his eye he noticed the quick movement of light blonde hair, a shift in movement that drew his attention away from the scene in front of him. Glancing over, he saw Daphne Greengrass pressing her knuckles in front of her mouth as if she couldn’t help but look away from the situation that had arisen in their classroom, her hand shielding her face in what looked like second-hand embarrassment.

Pansy sat beside her with wide eyes and a wolfish smile, clearly getting her kicks out of the drama unfolding in front of her. Her head seemed to bounce from one area of the room to another, watching the Gryffindor students battle with their professor. There was what could only be described as a primal look in her gaze, the sort of look Oliver Wood had in Quidditch-induced mania when he realized somebody was getting their arse beat.

As if she could feel the heat of his stare in her direction, Daphne looked over at him and an indecipherable expression flitted across her face- a mixture of confusion and something else, something he couldn’t identify. With an unsubtle raise of her eyebrow, she shook her head at him as if to ask, _‘Excuse me, are you quite done staring, or would you like to take a photograph?_ ’

Neville quickly glanced away.

“- _This is a lie.”_

“It is NOT a lie!” screamed Harry, a vein protruding out of his neck in a way that made him look much older than a mere fifteen-year-old. “I saw him, I fought him!”

“Detention, Mr. Potter! Tomorrow evening. Five o’clock. My office. I repeat, _this is a lie._ The Ministry of Magic guarantees that you are not in danger from any Dark wizard. If you are still worried, by all means come and see me outside class hours. If someone is alarming you with fibs about reborn Dark wizards, I would like to hear about it. I am here to help. I am your _friend._ And now, will you kindly continue your reading. Page five, ‘Basics for Beginners.’ “

Perfectly in line with Harry’s usual heroics, he stood from his chair. More hushed protest and gasps rang out among them, and Neville felt like the entire situation looked an awful lot like one of those Greek tragedies where the audience knows the hero’s doomed before the hero ever does.

“So,” Harry asked dangerously. “According to you, Cedric Diggory dropped dead of his own accord, did he?”

No one spoke. The silence rang loudly.

“Cedric Diggory’s death was a tragic accident.”

“It was murder. Voldemort killed him, and you know it.”

_Danger. Danger._

Umbridge, her voice even and sweet as her face stayed blank from any emotion, called Harry over to her. Succinctly and proudly, she pulled out a pink slip from the atrocious handbag by her side and with a scribble of her quill, she held it out to the boy.

“Take this to Professor McGonagall, dear,” she told him kindly.

And that was that.

Harry left the room, and as an uncomfortable silence filled the space arguing had once filled, Neville wondered whether or not his friend had unquestioningly won or completely lost.

Later that evening, after a whisper-filled dinner where Harry’s expression remained murderous and Ron and Hermione had flanked both sides of him protectively, Neville went to his Potions classroom for tutoring.

His wrists wrung by his side in trepidation as he stood outside the closed door- he definitely didn’t want to scare Daphne again, and a part of him was nervous about interacting with a Slytherin after today’s Gryffindor display in DADA. Would she use their one-on-one and mock his friends, like Malfoy definitely would? Would she ignore him completely, staring at him with disbelief as she wondered how he could be friends with a _crazy person_ like Harry Potter?

Instead, Neville gave a brief rap against the wood with his knuckles and he allowed himself in, opening the door slowly as to not surprise the blonde girl as he did the other day.

Daphne, perched on top of one of the tables similarly to their last tutoring session, glanced up from the book in her lap and looked at him with wide eyes. “You’re early,” she said, her eyes flickering to the clock on the wall. “I wasn’t expecting you for another few minutes.”

Her wand waved over her book in a way that Neville assumed was an attempt at being discreet, but he noticed the blurring of a Glamour Charm fall over the book’s cover and replace it with the cover of their Transfigurations textbook. Neville’s eyebrows rose curiously.

“I… I didn’t want to catch you off guard. And I didn’t want to be late again. Sorry…sorry if I’m too early,” he explained as he loomed in the doorway, unsure if the five minutes ahead of the clock he had carved out had been a good idea after all.

Setting the book aside, Daphne uncrossed her legs and waved him over to take a seat. “Sooner we begin, the sooner we can get out,” she answered casually. “Is there anything in particular you want to work on today?”

Neville frowned. “I… I thought you wanted to start all the way back to the basics. Like, we were going to do all the potions from the last four years…?”

The laugh Daphne let out was completely unexpected and a little bizarre. It was a loud, short burst of emotion that was quickly replaced by her perpetually blank expression, and for a second Neville wondered if he was hallucinating.

“Absolutely not,” Daphne replied. “That was just for the first day, Longbottom, to get an idea of what you needed help with. It’s clear you… need help with just about everything, and the O.W.L.s are only getting closer and closer every day. There’s no point in going over every single potion or else I’ll be tutoring you until 2002.”

Heat rose to his cheeks, the implication of her comment was hardly subtle- she was essentially calling him an idiot, and he didn’t have much of a foundation to debate that point. But strangely the twist to his mouth and the pinched look on his face must have caused her some alarm, because she stumbled to backtrack what she said.

“Not that… I mean, you’ve got to be good at other things, surely? You don’t _need_ to be good at Potions. You just need to be… proficient. And if you want to be tutored into the next century, I’m sure _Granger_ would be more than happy to help you with that,” Daphne said semi-smoothly.

Neville wasn’t sure what to make of that, so he shot her a hopefully reassuring grin even though he didn’t know how to respond to her comment about Hermione. “Settling for ‘good enough’ is fine by me,” he told her.

“Good.”

“…Great.”

An awkward silence fell between them, and both Fifth Years looked at each other in the hopes that one of them would speak first.

Daphne cleared her throat. “…So are you going to tell me what would be most helpful for you to work on today, or are you expecting me to perform Legilimency on top of everything else?”

And with that, they got to work.

* * *

If you asked Daphne herself, she would tell you that she was _not,_ by any means, a kind person.

She really wasn’t. Some of the thoughts that ran through her head were so vicious and cruel and jealous and biting she had to wonder if she were human at all; sometimes she felt her fingers curl into her palms and her nails make little cuts in her skin as she fought back things she knew would hurt, things she couldn’t take back.

But throughout her time at Hogwarts and even a little before then, her friends did not know this, and certainly didn’t agree.

_“Sweet little Daft-ne,”_ Pansy would say condescendingly in their youth, giving the blonde’s hair a gentle stroke or a quick finger-jab to the cheek. _“How are you so sweet, I wonder?”_

It was an insult. There was nothing remotely complimentary about being called ‘sweet’ by Pansy Parkinson.

And Draco or Theo or Blaise agreed with Pansy, even if it wasn’t in so many words. “ _Something’s wrong with you,”_ Theo told her last year, shaking his head lazily as he let out a puff of smoke from the cigarette he had definitely stolen from an upperclassman.

_“Why do you say that?”_

Theo’s eyes shifted towards her and for a moment, he looked a little sad. _“You’re too good to be hanging out with someone like me.”_

_“You aren’t shitty. You’re… you’re one of the best people I know.”_

He’d sighed. _“Only a nice enough person could call me that and believe it.”_

Daphne didn’t ever tell them about all the awful thoughts she had in her head, the ones she had about herself and her parents and other people. There was enough nastiness to go around, and honestly even if she wasn’t a Slytherin in the same ways her friends were, she knew herself better than anyone.

But there was something distinct about Neville Longbottom that made her feel a little wrong for thinking so terribly about somebody else. Maybe it was the fact that he perpetually looked like a kicked baby Crup all the time, or maybe it was the fact that his own self-awareness made her feel guilty for thinking him dumb or ignorant or naïve.

And a little part of her sort of felt special for being chosen as a tutor by Professor Snape, that she was a bit more useful than her father had ever made her out to be. She didn’t want to lose her new job just yet.

So Daphne was trying to be nice. It was difficult, being kind to someone just for the sake of doing so because sweetness and personal warmth were reserved for people she cared about and people she wanted things from. Neville Longbottom did not fit into either category.

“And that,” she told him patiently after a few hours of explaining, re-explaining, starting from scratch, and jumping all over the completely unplanned lesson she had for the day’s tutoring session. “…Is how you cast a measurement charm.”

“And it _only_ works in the imperial system?” Neville asked curiously. Daphne tried not to allow her eye to twitch.

“Correct.”

“And if I need to use metric?”

“Well, you’re sorely out of luck I suppose.”

“…I’ll ask Hermione. Maybe I should know that, for the O.W.L.”

“Go ahead and ask her, then.”

Scribbling in a bound journal beside him, Neville scratched every question Daphne couldn’t answer on the little white pages as his tongue poked through pressed lips. The page was filling up, and a part of her regretted her poor planning skills by coming into the tutoring session with absolutely nothing organized for the Gryffindor boy.

It wasn’t that Daphne was… insecure, not at all. It was just that perhaps she was realizing she was a bit out of her depth when it came to random factpieces of knowledge Neville had clearly expected from his previous tutoring. She didn’t know how to say it politely, but Daphne had better use of her spare time than to memorize useless information she wouldn’t ever need to know unless it was a case like this, in which someone asked a crazy hypothetical.

And yes, she knew Neville was uncomfortable with her as his instructor. Hell, she was uncomfortable too, but dammit if she wasn’t _trying_ to make this bearable.

She was _trying_ to be fucking _nice._

“And for certain plants, let’s just say the brewing recipe for a potion asks for a measurement of that plant. Would the recipe mean it wants me to measure the plant in its regular physical state, or crushed or grinded up? How would I know?” Neville questioned.

“It would indicate the physical state in the recipe. Or it should, anyway. When in doubt, ask.”

There was no point trying to read her book, she realized. Neville seemed to want to ask every question under the sun, and she knew the progress between Thomasin and her lover would have to wait.

“But what if it doesn’t say?”

“Then don’t brew it, Neville. If you don’t know what you’re doing, perhaps think ahead and don’t do it.”

“… Maybe there’s a spell for that, though? I’ll… I’ll check with Hermione.”

Daphne slammed her book on the table, her hands curled up angrily as her manicure pressed into her palms sharply enough to make little indents in her skin. Neville didn’t look up, and instead he scribbled his question down in his little notebook to add to the plethora of others she couldn’t answer.

She wanted to take that notebook and incinerate it in her hands, but she assumed if Snape ever found out, any of her newly given class absence privileges would be swiftly taken away.

“How many potions do you think I’d be able to memorize before the exams?” Neville prompted as he held his head up in his hands.

She blew out a breath. “I know about as well as you do, Longbottom. We can go over the ones Snape said might appear on the test, but otherwise, you’re guess is as good as mine. It’s your memory, after all.”

“Hmm…” he replied unconvincingly. “…Okay.”

Neville wrote that down below the last sloppily written line, going over it once more to dot his _i’s_ with a flurry of his quill. His mouth opened as if he wanted to ask something else, but then thought better of it and quickly clamped it shut again. Daphne’s teeth grinded together.

“What is it?” she asked, doing her best to keep anger out of her voice. “Just ask me.”

Neville’s mouth opened and shut again, and he met her with an uneasy smile. “I-It’s fine,” he replied quickly. “Sorry…just forget it, it wasn’t anything important.”

“No, go ahead and say it. What were you going to say?”

Torn with indecision, Neville’s eyes flickered from her to the floor in uncertainty as he weighed his options. Daphne nodded at him again, urging him on.

“I-I just,” he stammered awkwardly, not looking at her. “Usually, Hermione can answer a lot of my questions.”

“I’m not Hermione,” Daphne answered.

Neville nodded, grimacing. “I…know.”

It didn’t take Daphne any more than a second to catch on what he was trying to say, and she felt her cheeks flush and her insides turn sick as her eyes shot a cold glare his way. “What are you trying to say, Longbottom?” she challenged. “Are you saying… I’m not _smart enough_ to tutor you?”

He immediately protested, shaking his head as Daphne rose from her desk and stalked towards him. But he was rubbing the back of his neck like he’d been caught, which he probably wouldn’t have done had Daphne not outed him for his exact thinking. “I didn’t say _that,”_ he said heatedly. “I just… I don’t know, maybe I can talk to Professor Snape to get us both out of this. I mean… y-you don’t really want to tutor me anyway, right?”

_“Out of this?_ Who are you to say whether or not I want to be your tutor?” Daphne snapped. The crescent indents her nails left behind had reopened, and she could feel tiny prickles of pain in her hands as she glowered at the shaken Gryffindor.

Neville shook his head again and sighed, the droop in his shoulders discernable as he rummaged the rapid- speed of his thoughts for something he could say to salvage the situation. “I think… I mean, I can just tell you don’t really… want to be here right now, right? If you had a say, you probably wouldn’t have chosen to tutor me. And for me, I… sort of need tutors who can answer stuff like the questions I’ve been asking. But maybe if I talk to Professor Snape, he’ll see this wasn’t a good match and he’ll scrap the entire idea. It… it would be good for the both of us, wouldn’t it?”

She was seething. _Seething._ And something absolutely _disgusting_ had thickened in the back of her throat, but it was most definitely not humiliation or the feeling of wanting to cry. Not at all.

A little voice in the back of Daphne’s head, one that sounded like an odd mixture of Pansy and her father, piped up meanly as she struggled to regain her composure. _Look at you,_ it mocked. _He barely said a thing and you’re already about to cry. This boy, this LOSER, is really making you lose it like this?_

_What sort of Slytherin are YOU?_

_A Slytherin that almost wasn’t, isn’t that right? What did that stupid fucking hat say again… oh, perhaps it was something along the lines of being a “better fit elsewhere…”_

“How dare you.”

In seconds, any emotion ringing through Daphne’s voice disappeared and left a flat, monotone drone in its wake. She smoothed over her robes as she looked at Neville with disdain, but nonetheless forced all of her feelings as far back as she could to smother the nasty little voice she didn’t need to hear. Didn’t _want_ to hear.

“I have been nothing but _polite_ to you, Longbottom. You were right, the other day, when you said I might have better things to do than all of this. Because I _do._ And despite whether or not I was forced to tutor you or not, I have been as cordial as I possibly can because… because, well just _because_!”

Neville looked at her with wide eyes. Daphne’s heart was hammering against her ribcage. She wasn’t done.

“From the moment Professor Snape talked to you about our arrangement all of a few days ago, you have compared me to Hermione fucking Granger more times than I’d ever like to be, and you belittle me as you ask all these stupid questions nobody in the castle _but_ Granger would be able to answer!”

With a flurry, she grabbed her book and her satchel and took off for the door. She walked quickly but briskly, not wanting him to look at the shaking in her hands. Even if he thought her stupid he’d think her a proper adult if she had anything to do with it, dammit.

“Daphne…I-“

“Don’t,” Daphne interrupted, holding a hand out to stop him. “If you want Granger to tutor you so badly, I won’t stand in your way. I have much better ways to spend my time than by being insulted by a _Gryffindor,_ of all people, for my intelligence or lack thereof. Thanks for being a total arsehole.”

With a dignified nod, she left the classroom.

She thought she’d feel some sort of satisfaction at Neville’s expression of embarrassment and guilt, but she felt nothing at all.

* * *

Astoria didn’t have her potions regimen more than once a week unless absolutely necessary, something Daphne hadn’t ever been so thankful for until now.

She muttered the password to get into her dormitory and practically flew past the Common Room, ignoring the confused gazes of Blaise and Theo. In all honesty they would probably be the last ones to understand, and she didn’t want them to see her in such a vulnerable state anyway.

_Stupid, stupid, stupid,_ she thought to herself angrily.

As she arrived into her shared room, she walked past a mud-mask covered Pansy and ripped open her bed curtain. She just wanted to be alone.

“Um, _hello?”_ Pansy called out to her as Daphne took comfort in the dark, enclosed space. “Talk about rudeness.”

“Daph? You okay?” Millicent asked cautiously. “Are… you upset, or something?”

Taking a deep, calming breath, Daphne closed her eyes and willed herself to do that strange thing that sometimes happened to her- if she could just _remove_ herself from…well, herself, she could join her friends and just explain she had a headache or something. She wrapped her arms around her legs and laid her chin on her knees, forming herself into an upright infant’s pose as she tried to make her mind go far and away.

A few moments later, she opened her bed curtain with a blank expression and yawned as Pansy, Millicent, and Tracey Davis sat together quietly. They stared at her as she walked in their direction to join them, and she plopped down on Pansy’s bed with a sigh.

“I don’t like tutoring Longbottom,” Daphne explained plainly. “I was very…aggravated.”

Pansy, who’s mud-mask had since been wiped off and was now painting her nails an inky black, let out a startled laugh. “Obviously, Daph. Did you think you’d _enjoy_ it or something? It’s Longbottom, for Godric’s sake.”

“No, of course not,” she said quickly. “I just… today was very frustrating. I think I’ll have to talk to Professor Snape and ask him if there’s someone else I can tutor. Longbottom… it’s not going to work out.”

“What a dumbarse,” Millicent snorted. “He should be so lucky to have you tutor him. He’s got the prettiest girl in all of Fifth Year right in front of him, and he just threw his chance to look at you away. What an absolute idiot.”

The words were probably meant to make Daphne feel good, but all it did was make her feel strangely hollow. 

“I don’t even understand why you’re tutoring him in the first place,” Pansy quipped as she stared at her nails. Tracey nodded eagerly, like a bobblehead toy on the verge of losing its head. “I mean, I don’t know why you didn’t play dumb.”

“Because Professor Snape asked me.”

“Yeah, I know. You should have said you weren’t up to the task or something, I mean, just anything to get out of having to work with Longbottom. Also, why wasn’t _I_ asked? I’m the Slytherin prefect, after all. If anyone should have the authority to tutor, it should be _me,”_ Pansy complained petulantly.

Daphne shrugged, even though she felt a bit of annoyance at the redirection in their conversation. “Maybe he’d assume you wouldn’t have enough time, with your new Prefect responsibilities and all. Or maybe I’m being punished for something,” she lied to the dark-haired girl.

“Yeah… that would make sense… but still, to not even _ask_ me? Of course, I’d have to decline… I am terribly busy, after all. But it’s the thought that counts, you know… ugh, how irritating. It’s just like Snape to look past me, what an arse.”

Millicent snorted, and her jaw was clenched angrily as her eyes darted from Daphne’s forlorn expression to Pansy’s annoyed one. “Maybe it’s because even though Snape’s a right prat most of the time, he knows the way you’d treat Longbottom would be border illegal, Parkinson,” Millicent bit out. “And what a surprise! You find out your friend’s had a bad day, and you make it all about you!”

Pansy looked at Millicent with infuriated astonishment, and she held a polished hand to her chest dramatically. “I _did not!_ ” she shrieked at a volume far too loud to warrant. “I am just stating the facts here! Snape is clearly not in his right mind or something, obviously. I was just demonstrating that the fact that he even asked Daphne in the first place instead of me should have been cause for alarm, that’s all! See? Now we all feel better, right, Daph?”

Daphne looked down at Pansy’s comforter and stared at a stray hem. With nimble fingers, she picked at it and didn’t answer either way.

“See? Daphne agrees!”

“She didn’t even say anything!”

“Mind your own business, Millicent. Daph might not be the brightest flame but at least she doesn’t weigh as much as a Hippogriff. You, on the other hand, have been saddled with ugliness _and_ stupidity, so maybe you should focus on your own laundry list of issues,” Pansy said with a curl of her lip.

Tracey smiled. “Yeah, Millie,” she agreed with a sneer. “Hop off Pansy’s jock, Merlin.”

Millicent recoiled like she’d been slapped and looked to Daphne for some sort of support, but the blonde couldn’t find it in her to be bothered. She suddenly felt the same tiredness she felt the other day wash over her, and she clumsily got to her feet and walked over to her bed.

“I’m going to sleep,” she told them simply, rubbing away the tick in her jaw. “Goodnight.”

Pansy, Tracey, and Millicent all stared after her curiously, and Daphne ignored the whispers that commenced in their dormitory for the rest of the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Hope you all enjoyed chapter 4. I thought I'd give you a little more insight into my inspiration for this fic- admittedly, I've been watching a lot of Glee and Euphoria lately, and I was really inspired by Quinn Fabray in combination with Cassie Howard as my basis for Daphne. Beautiful girls that aren't seen as anything more than their exterior despite a lot of depth and hurt underneath it all, a desire to be loved even if it means tolerating cruelty. I really see Neville as a Finn-type, a guy who objectively doesn't look like he has a lot to offer but has such warmth and love for the people in his life that it overshadows a lot of his faults. Who do the other characters remind you of, I wonder? Please bookmark, kudos, and like if you can!


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